Active Week To Begin 2017
The end of 2016 will be quiet weather-wise for all of ENC. High pressure is set to build over the area and shift offshore on Saturday leaving us with mostly sunny skies throughout the day and mostly clear skies Saturday night. Temperatures tomorrow are forecast mid to upper 50s during the day and drop to the mid to upper 40s by midnight. Low temperatures will eventually fall to near 40 prior to sunrise on New Year’s Day.
Conditions stay dry through New Year’s Day though with some increasing clouds. A trough will develop along the coast during the day and begin to lift north as a warm front. During the early evening hours, we will begin to see rain spread northward across the entire area. The rain will persist through the night and well into Monday. The rain will become less widespread by Monday night into early Tuesday morning. High Temperatures on Tuesday will rise to around the mid to upper 70s across the area. The rain should move out of the area by late Tuesday with the passage of the cold front.
By the end of next week, the forecast becomes more active for the southeast. We begin to see a series of short-waves move over the southeast. There has been a lot of uncertainty over key features over the region with regards to what to expect for ENC. Moisture will return to the region and earlier this week there was weak support for potential frozen precipitation. The models had hinted at a CAA scenario for the east coast allowing enough cold air to produce frozen precipitation but like all long-range forecast, it is always prone to major errors which is why I don’t rely on them very often.
The current forecast calls for the high to be over the central US as opposed to the earlier northeastern US removing cold air from the forecast. Unless we see a major shift in the forecast, I’d expect the precipitation over the entire area to be rain though not set in stone. Obviously this is something that I will be watching over the coming week and will update if anything changes.
Update (as of Friday night): The 00Z GFS run has definitely shifted from recent runs. The CMC has shifted a little from its most recent run with a more amplified ridge resulting in a more amplified trough over the eastern US. It looks like it is going to come down to how amplified the ridge is over the western US, how much the trough amplifies over the east, and high pressure placement leading to CAA. I am going to exercise caution on this one and wait for further run consistency before reacting on this one. As of right now my forecast remains unchanged from this afternoon.
Update (Saturday morning): The 06Z GFS is less aggressive with its forecast for next weekend. The 06Z GFS and 00Z CMC are very similar with this system. The 00Z Euro has a weaker system and further offshore though some light precipitation could occur across ENC. Under those conditions, some areas in ENC could potentially see frozen precipitation. There is still a lot of time to monitor this system but I would like to see more consistency from these models before I jump to any conclusions. I will leave forecast as-is for now.
Update (Noon Saturday): 12Z GFS has backed off significantly from the 00Z GFS. The 12Z CMC also backs off significantly. As a result, I will leave my forecast unchanged through this set of model updates. This evening I will post a detailed forecast for the coming week.
I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!
